Goldorak

you are forgiven because the weather has been so nice all week. And it was worse and colder in Paris.

orbitmic

brunos

I am starting to regret my FB G card.
Has food offering improved at Cap Ferrat?
I also wonder how the new ownership will affect the airport.

Just off a wonderful QR flight from CDG to HKG. DO we have confirmation of the date when QR will open the NCE route and details on frequency and ac. I am worried that it will be primarily seasonal.

orbitmic

Nope, the food offer has not changed substantively. You still get the sandwiches (currently a choice of shredded parma ham with mozzarella or chargrilled vegetables), the various mini-pizzas, pissaladieres, and quiches, wrapped cheese portions, yoghurts, gazpacho (to change to a hot soup at the end of this month for the winter season), compotes, whole fruits, and various biscuits, sweets, crackers etc. I still think that it is one of the best around for a contracted lounge in Europe (including free Champagne which is pretty much unheard off amongst European contracted lounges) but of course less generous than most hub lounges at least at meal times (frankly, I actually find it a small notch above CDG lounges outside of meal times). The coffee is better than at CDG, LHR and FRA hub lounges (except F/P lounges).

I actually can't wait for QR to open the NCE-DOH route, which is part of their 2017 openings http://www.qatarairways.com/global/en/destinations.page . This will make flights to HKG even better (unless you are on the CDG-DOH 388 which is very nice IMHO, but T1 at CDG is a bit of a pain in the neck!). Still, I have had three excellent returns with QR in recent weeks and a fourth coming in December. They have even just changed/improved the toiletry bags (I wish they would change/improve the pyjamas too, but the very fact that they give them in overnight J is already a pretty clear statement about their service ethos). The route is definitely announced as permanent and not seasonal and I'm personally not too worried. QR were actually very satisfied with the income from their NCE opening when they did via MXP and would have kept it if it did not mean sacrificing some CDG frequencies that took precedence, NCE is still very premium-heavy notably long haul, which QR likes, and EK is happy enough with yield and traffic that they are planning their move to daily A388 after having progressed from 3 weekly A330 to 5 weekly, to A340, to daily 772 and currently daily 77W. Similarly, QR are managing year-round routes such as PSA, which has merely 40% of the traffic of NCE. I think that NCE also follows pressing demands from wealthy Qatari (just like LHR, CDG, and GVA) because of the amount of property ownership in the area which they want to enjoy. To be honest, I am more worried about "normal" J pax being downgraded QR style when an influent family decide that they need seats in an otherwise full J cabin!!

The other news in terms of new routes has been the signature of a MoU for a new PVG-NCE route by China Eastern expected to start in two years (but with Chinese airlines, I always take such announcements with a pinch of salt personally as they tend to have an asymmetric perception of "commitments"! ).

I don't think that any of us can go beyond guesses on the impact of the new ownership. For those who have not followed, 60% of shares of NCE were sold for 22 times their estimated price to the "Azzurra" Italian-French consortium which is mostly made of the Italian group Atlantia (which owns FCO and part belongs to the Bennetton family) and EDF investment (which is actually a very active investor in the UK even more than in France). The remaining 40% are retained by the Commerce Chamber and city, county, and regional councils.

Interestingly, the choice seems to have been approved by local actors who had been very vocal against the principle of the privatisation. They absolutely wanted to avoid ownership by AdP (rightly or wrongly perceived as likely to make NCE the "suburb" of Paris and not pull their weight to get it direct routes), which dropped out of the race of their own accord as a result of that opposition. They then fought hard to avoid Vinci (which won LYS) which was seen as generous but lacking a vision for the airport. By contrast, apparently, Azzurra accepted to embrace the strategic plan recently put together by the airport both in terms of new routes and airport tax policy (currently the cheapest of any large French airport by quite a margin and now expected to remain so for at least the next 15 years). Nobody knows the details apart from the stakeholders though, and cautious people like myself will always wonder if things will be as rosy as claimed with cheap taxes, structural investment, and plenty of new direct routes, or if on the contrary there is a "catch" somewhere and it will prove a smoke screen.

It is probably fair to be cautiously optimistic, but when it comes to the details, time will tell I guess...

dutchbird

Has anyone an idea why all flights from NCE to Greece, Belgium and The Netherlands now depart from B - meaning you have to go through passport control. Thought this was Schengen... and Europe does not allow systematic passport control in the Schengen area. Also incoming passengers are being checked. (This is from T2)

orbitmic

Yes, it is part of the "etat d'urgence" (state of emergency) rules currently going on in France (one of its measures has been to re-establish passport control for flights within Schengen) and the same in other French airports. There are some exceptions although they sound rather random and more complex than what you suggest about countries differentiation.

dutchbird

Well, that's what the person in the lounge told me - these passport checks should be random, because European rules don't allow for permanent passport checks, as the Danes found out when they wanted to re-introduce border control in Jutland.

NickB

Do you mean that this is constantly changing? It has been a while since I flew from NCE T2 but last time I did (early July), I was surprised to have to go to the non-Schengen area for my AMS flight and, IIRC, the Schengen countries concerned were the very same as mentioned by Dutchbird. It might be mere coincidence of course.

IIRC, the situation in Denmark was not quite the same. It was not a measure meant to address a specific issue and conceived of as temporary but was a general measure to reintroduce controls at land borders for good. The French measure is meant to be temporary and targetted at a more specific security risk, although it is admittedly a rather lengthy temporary measure but perhaps understandable in the context.

orbitmic

It's not permanent. The Etat d'Urgence is limited in time and compatible with Schengen in terms of re-establishing temporary border controls.

As I mentioned, I'm not sure what the lounge person told you but there is an element of randomness because some days it is the flights to Germany or Italy, etc. It is not always the same flights/countries treated at the B gates.

orbitmic

I think we posted at the same time! Yes, I have had T2 B departures for Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland etc in recent months. I have also had several of those at the A gates on other days. I have no idea how it is allocated/how often the changes occur (e.g. if it is by day, week, etc).

In T1, it is organised differently: Schengen remains at A gates and non Schengen B gates, but some days you have to go through passport control before entering the A gates and sometimes not (the location of the passport control booths make this possible and not at T2).

NickB

We did indeed. Thanks for the clarification.

orbitmic

No problem! I'll try to find out more details when I'm at NCE (albeit T1) next week! I usually get full briefings on the airport news from some of the lounge agents, which I usually try to avoid but I do make exceptions when I actually want to find stuff out!

orbitmic

So an update as promised. Apparently too many people were confused by the frequent changes and it led to issues to gate attribution, so the list of destinations moved to B area is no longer rotated, but instead currently stable and apparently includes Belgium, Greece, and the Netherlands. The person I spoke to had no ideas why those nor whether they will be further rotated but on a more infrequent basis. I guess we can all hope that the Etat d'Urgence ends soon and the passport control within Schengen with it.

NickB

Thanks for this. ^

CDGcommuter

A quick update on the Fast Track in NCE T2: I was there yesterday and now the Fast Track is accessible to both SP Pax and Club Airport Premier Gold and Platinum members.